Abstract
Research on self-handicapping, producing barriers to personal success to reduce the meaningfulness of failure, has focused mostly on the short-term benefits of maintaining self-esteem and reducing the crushing emotional blow of failure. Nevertheless, there are long-term costs to self-handicapping. Specifically, self-handicapping interferes with psychological processes such as self-reflection and assessment that accompany the experience of failure and assist in long-term self-regulatory processes. As such, those who choose to self-handicap reduce the likelihood of future improvement. Those interested in long-term success may therefore see less benefit in self-handicapping. Two studies were conducted to test the moderating role of grit (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelley, 2007) and trait self-control (Tangney, Baumeister, & Boone, 2004) on self-handicapping behaviors. A correlational study did find strong negative relationships between reported self-handicapping and both grit and trait self-control. A follow-up study examining actual behavior failed to confirm this finding, however. Although males high in grit appeared to challenge themselves in a non-evaluative situation, there were no differences between those high versus low on these individual differences in their likelihood to engage in self-handicapping behaviors.
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